In the summer of 2018, when Tesla needed to quickly ramp up production at its Fremont, Calif., factory, the company erected a big top the size of two football fields in the parking lot. The strategy brought into stark relief the difficulty of taking a vehicle from the drawing board to the end of an assembly line.
The future of the auto industry in America will be largely determined by a parade of new electric trucks — at least four from Detroit incumbents facing off against at least six from Tesla Inc. and other upstarts. The newcomers will be building pickups for the first time, but they also will be building truck factories for the first time, which is arguably a more difficult task. Not only have Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co., and Stellantis NV refined the blocking and tackling of building and tooling a factory, they have scads of them sitting empty or ticking away at reduced capacity.
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